roots of Connecticut River Valley deindustrialization: The Springfield American Bosch plant 1940-1975, The

Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Winter 2003 by Forrant, Robert

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Springfield's economic prosperity came from a diversified manufacturing base deeply rooted in a set of industries that required at their core large numbers of highly skilled metalworkers and machinists. In his comprehensive four volume history of Massachusetts industry published in 1930 Orra Stone called the city "a beehive of diversified production" as he described 24 factories each with an annual production in excess of $1 million.1 For over 100 years the Connecticut River Valley between Hartford, Connecticut and White River Junction, Vermont with Springfield at its middle-prospered as a metalworking region.

American industry, undamaged by the Second World War, accounted for close to half of global manufacturing output in the mid-1950s and firms in Springfield prospered. Productivity rose, workers enjoyed rising standards of living and benefited from the protections of the liberal state and Keynesian fiscal and monetary policy. However, the country could not sustain its premier position as `manufacturer to the world' and between 1979 and 1983 employment in the highly unionized durable goods sector declined by slightly over two million jobs (16 percent). Much of the manufacturing done by American corporations shifted overseas during these years as the nation deindustrialized. During the 1980s one in five American workers saw their job disappear and the percentage of unionized manufacturing labor declined from almost 50 percent in 1970 to approximately 10 percent by the early 1990s.2

The roots of the deindustrialization process and the weakening of organized labor are seen in events in Springfield, Massachusetts starting in the 1950s, as Springfield and the Connecticut River Valley suffered numerous plant closing that culminated with the dramatic shutdown in 1986 of the American Bosch plant. While a thorough history of factory closings in the region is well beyond the scope of this article, herein I make a contribution to such a history through an account of the early stages of deindustrialization in greater-Springfield-as evidenced by the movement of work out of the city in the 1950s and 1960s-with a particular focus on the Bosch, as it was familiarly known. The story matters for the permanent closure of the plant in 1986 marked the watershed for large-firm metalworking and metalworking unions in the Connecticut River Valley.

Springfield, Massachusetts sits at the approximate center of the 200 hundred mile long Connecticut River Valley between Bridgeport, Connecticut and Springfield, Vermont. The valley began to secure a diverse manufacturing base in 1776 when Springfield became the site for a federal armory.3 By the early 1800s the Armory had become the hub ofa flourishing industrial district along the river and for most of the 19th century Springfield and its environs enjoyed a comparative technological advantage over many other regions of the country due to the diffusion of Armory manufacturing techniques such as the utilization of gages, fixtures, jigs and dies and the availability of large numbers of skilled metalworkers. According to historian David Hounshell, "The Armory acted both as a clearing house for technical information and a training ground for mechanics who later worked for private arms makers or for manufacturers of other goods." Numerous skilled mechanics and machine designers took a stint at the Springfield Armory before traveling to other clusters of metalworking companies in Providence, Rhode Island, Worcester, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut and Windsor, Vermont and by 1840 the Connecticut River Valley contained hundreds of small metalworking and machine making firms. By 1850 Springfield, Massachusetts housed 73 machine shops, six cotton factories, three paper mills, four printing concerns, two tool factories, a saw factory, several saw and grist mills, two brass foundries, two plow manufactories, and eight firms involved in the production of railroad cars and coaches.4

After the Civil War the valley machine tool industry fostered the growth of a range of industrial regions, such as watches in Waltham, footwear in Haverhill, furniture in Gardner, munitions in Bridgeport, Connecticut, typewriters and wire drawing across that state, the production of specialized machinery for the automobile industry in Windsor and Springfield, Vermont, textiles in Lowell, jewelry making in Attleboro, cutting tools in Greenfield, and metal working and specialist machine making in Worcester and Springfield. There existed a reciprocal relationship among machine tool builders, the hundreds of small, highly specialized tool-and-die shops and foundries that provided them with fixtures, tooling, gages, and made-to-order components, and final goods producers that greatly enhanced overall industrial competitiveness in the valley and established a plentiful pool of skilled machinists and engineers there.5 The Armory and other Springfield-area machine-making firms and metalworking establishments had acted as a `transmission agency' for the spread of production-enhancing techniques to users in numerous industries.6 The American Machinist (1917) noted that in the Armory "...many good ideas are gathered from the rank and file and it is to the foreman's best interests to bring out the best that is in his men." Armory historian Patrick Malone concluded that "successful foremen at Springfield always followed this practice; most of them had risen from the rank and file in the production shop or had served an apprenticeship under a skilled machinist."7